1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless networks and, more particularly, to data transmission over wireless networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet or the World Wide Web is a global network of interconnected computers. Clients or users can access files or documents, e.g., hypermedia documents, residing on the host website computers connected to the Internet through use of a network browser program. Examples of network browser programs include Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Explorer. One type of hypermedia documents is commonly referred to as web pages. Sites or documents on the Internet are typically chosen by a user by entering a site address, i.e., a Universal Resource Locator (URL), or by a selection of a link on a displayed web page.
FIG. 8 is a conventional client/server system 800. The conventional client/server system 800 includes a client system 802 that couples to a server system 804 via the Internet 806. In this manner, any of a plurality of local files 808 (documents) associated with the server system 804 can be delivered to the client system 802 through the Internet 806. For example, the server system 804 transfers data for files 808 to the client system 802 through the Internet 806 utilizing a standard protocol, e.g., Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), for transferring data through the Internet 806. The server system 804 represents a host website computer providing the local files 808.
Unfortunately, due to the increased popularity of the use of the Internet 806 and due to increases in file sizes that are to be delivered to the client system 802 through the Internet 806, increasing demands are placed on the server system 804 and links 810 and 812 to handle the increased traffic. The file sizes continue to increase as files (e.g., web pages) become more elaborate and more graphical. As a result, general congestion tends to form in the system 800. This general congestion (or traffic) leads to slowed data transfer through the Internet 806, and thus clients or users face long waiting times.
In the case where the client system 802 connects to the Internet 806 through a wireless network and a wireless Internet Service Provider (ISP), the data transfer is presented with additional difficulties. Namely, the wireless connection has limited bandwidth which leads to even slower data transfer. The slow data transfer is not only frustrating to users but also expensive as users typically have to pay for wireless Internet access on a connection time basis.
Conventional solutions to difficulties problems with providing wireless Internet access have primarily been directed at reducing the amount of data to be transferred. For example, with Internet access, the data requested is often a web page. Conventionally, web pages have been “stripped down” for wireless access. For example, graphical images have been removed from the web pages. While removing graphical images does substantially reduce the amount of data to be transferred for a web page, it results in an uninteresting web page. The graphical images are important not only to the presentation of the information associated with the web page but also to providing advertising revenue. Another conventional approach has been to build private wireless networks for densely populated user areas, such as a corporate site, university, hotel, etc. These private wireless networks might be able to provide improved Internet access, but these networks are expensive to build and are only usable while in limited areas (e.g., corporate site, university, hotel).
Therefore, there is a need for improved techniques for efficiently and economically providing data transfer through wireless data networks.